Edmund Burke to the Sheriffs of Bristol April 27,2007

by Will

April is a month crowded with significant anniversaries. Very few are aware of a letter written on April 3, 1777 by British statesman Edmund Burke to the Sheriffs of Bristol, England, a city Burke represented in Parliament.

Revered by conservatives for his devotion to liberty under law, Burke opposed the war against the American colonies, concerned that the suppression of the colonists' rights would produce tyranny in England as well. He passionately opposed a measure suspending habeas corpus protection for those suspected of treason. This would permit such people to be detained indefinitely at the King's pleasure.

Burke warned that the measure threatened the rights of all Englishmen, since it created a precedent ?which may be advanced further and further at pleasure, on the ... argument of mere expedienc[y]....?

Were Edmund Burke alive today, he would probably make the same arguments against the federal Military Commissions Act, which denies habeas corpus protection to suspected terrorists.

Burke, a genuine conservative, opposed unnecessary wars and the deranged restrictions on domestic liberty produced by them.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

We all have to stand together April 26, 2007

by Will

Thomas Hays is an activist whose politics are not to everyone's taste. Born and raised in Missouri, Hays now lives in Seattle, where he's involved in anti-war and anti-globalization protests.

In February, Hays applied for a US Passport in order to take an academically accredited trip abroad. He presented his birth certificate, Social Security card, and Washington State ID.

A few weeks later the State Department sent him a letter denying Hays the passport and demanding ?school transcripts, high school yearbook pages showing your name and photograph, religious records, [and] tax/employment records.? Producing this information would be costly and time-consuming. It is also not legally necessary.

Hays has made no effort to conceal his radical politics, and believes that he's being denied a US passport because of his activism.

Ideology aside, it's difficult to disagree with the lesson Hays draws from this experience:

?We all [have] to watch the government. We all [have] to stand together, that's the only way we'll change anything.?

Indeed: Let us stand together in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

It's Soviet-style Information Control April 25, 2007

by Will

Riyadh Lafta is an Iraqi doctor who participated in a controversial study reporting that the US-led invasion has cost hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. Invited to take part in an April 20 medical conference in Washington State, Dr. Lafta was denied a visa by the State Department.

Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Colombia extended an invitation to Dr. Lafta so he could take part in the symposium via teleconference. Researchers could also have traveled by car to meet Dr. Lafta in person.

But traveling to Canada would have required a four-hour layover in London, and the British government ? apparently under pressure from Washington ? refused to grant him a transit visa.

Dr. Lafta's associates believe he was banned from our shores because his research would catalyze opposition to the Iraq war. The State Department claims it was the product of a simple miscommunication. Yet the doctor and his colleagues spent months trying to clear away obstacles to his visit.

This isn't border control. It's Soviet-style information control.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Prisoner on the Basis of Cyber-libels? April 24, 2007

by Will

Taner Akcam, a Turkish refugee, is a well-respected historian teaching at the University of Minnesota.

Through diligent research of official Turkish archives, Professor Akcam has documented the horrific slaughter of over a million Armenians by the government of Ottoman Turkey in 1915.

Activists associated with the Turkish government have retaliated by inserting comments in online book reviews and Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, falsely accusing Akcam of affiliation with terrorist groups. Data mining by Homeland Security officials found those malicious false accusations and used them to justify putting the professor on a watch list.

Last February, Professor Akcam was detained for several hours in Montreal, where he had traveled to give a lecture. Although he was eventually released, he was told by a US Homeland Security official that he would have to hire a lawyer to correct the issue,? and that he wasn't free to travel until he had done so.

America is now a country in which an innocent person can become a prisoner on the basis of cyber-libels.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Virginia Tech Slaughter April 23, 2007

by Will

While last week's slaughter of 32 people at Virginia Tech was carried out by a deranged student, the atrocity can reasonably be considered a case of death by government.

This is not because the murderer was acting on behalf of the State, but rather because his killing spree was facilitated by policies that disarmed the victims. Thus the killer was able to pursue his demonic errand unmolested, and at a leisurely pace.

As generally happens in such cases, the police acted as crime scene historians, drawing the chalk outlines and stringing up the crime scene tape. While SWAT teams have proven to be very effective at carrying out no-knock raids against poorly armed narcotics suspects, they are all but useless in dealing with armed rampages like the Virginia Tech massacre.

Government is to wield the sword of justice against evil-doers, not take the means of self-defense out of the hands of the innocent. This is why so-called gun control is both unconstitutional and anti-Biblical.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

The Architecture of Power April 20, 2007

by Will

Were it not for a quirk in his genealogy, the despot born 118 years ago today would have been named Adolf Schickelgruber. This may have aborted the Austrian-born demagogue's political career, since it would have deprived his followers of the percussive alliteration supplied by the phrase ?Heil Hitler!?

The Nazi Party excelled at mobilizing the masses, and Hitler himself was a master mesmerist. But it was the centralization of power in Germany's chief executive office that made him a genocidal menace.

The pre-Nazi German constitution authorized the executive to declare a temporary state of emergency and rule by decree. This was made permanent after Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933.

Within the year, Germany's police were brought under federal control and placed at the disposal of the ruling party. And the Nazi regime used gun registration laws enacted by its predecessor to disarm everyone but those loyal to the Party and its Fuhrer.

The key to understanding the nightmare of Nazism is in this architecture of power, rather than Hitler's unique personality.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Atrocity at Waco April 19, 2007

by Will

Fourteen years ago today, roughly eighty people ? including seventeen small children ? burned to death at the Mt. Carmel religious retreat outside of Waco, Texas. This occurred after FBI operatives in tanks had pumped an enormous volume of CS gas into the sanctuary, and then fired incendiary rounds into the building.

The Feds kept fire and rescue teams away while the children burned to death.

The victims, commonly called the Branch Davidians, had been attacked 51 days earlier in an unnecessary armed raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The supposed justification for that assault was a badly flawed warrant accusing David Koresh, the group's leader, of technical violations of federal firearms regulations.

Koresh had tried to cooperate with the ATF investigation, and could easily have been brought in for questioning. The ATF preferred an armed publicity stunt. The Davidians, under the agency's unlawful assault, didn't follow the script: They fired back in entirely justified self-defense. Thus ensued a long standoff that ended in flames.

Let us never forget the federal atrocity at Waco, and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Handcuff a Six-Year-Old Girl? April 18, 2007

by Will

Anybody who has been a teacher or nursery worker understands the difficulty of dealing with defiant children, particularly when the children come from broken homes.

Still ? isn't it just a tad excessive to handcuff a six-year-old girl, fingerprint her, and charge her with a felony -- for acting out in Kindergarten?

That's what happened to Desre'e Watson of Avon Park, Florida. When asked by a reporter about the episode, Police Chief Frank Mercurio replied: ?Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we've arrested??

Desre'e, a 50-pound menace to society, could be considered fortunate, in a sense. For ?assaulting? a teacher ? by kicking and screaming as she was led from the classroom ? the youngster could have been charged with terrorism under Section 802 of the so-called PATRIOT Act. A demented Arizona prosecutor recently filed that charge against a teenager accused of threatening another student with a knife ? a serious charge, but hardly terrorism as reasonable people understand it.

In a police state, overkill is always to tactic of first resort.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Wolfowitz like McNamara April 16, 2007

by Will

During George W. Bush's first term, Paul Wolfowitz played a key role maneuvering our nation into the disastrous Iraq war. Like Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Wolfowitz was rewarded for his failures by being appointed head of the World Bank, a UN-affiliated global financial institution.

Wolfowitz may soon be fired because of the corrupt favortism he displayed toward his so-called domestic partner, a woman named Shaha Riza, for whom he arranged a lucrative post at a foundation funded by the World Bank. This kind of corruption is entirely in keeping with the World Bank's track record.

Depspite its reputation for promoting economic development and humanitarian relief, the World Bank has done more to sow misery, poverty, corruption, and war than practically any institution in history. Its loans ? which are underwritten by the US taxpayer ? help entrench corrupt ruling elites in the Third World, while burdening their populations with huge debts.

It's not enough for Wolfowitz to be fired. The World Bank must be put out of business.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

Statist Homilies Omit Some Critical Facts. April 13, 2007

by Will

With the arrival of Tax Day each year, the organs of the prestige press resound with pious talk about the civic duty to pay ?our fair share? of the costs of government. Clergy often get into the act , misapplying the Biblical injunction to render to Caesar that which is his.

Such statist homilies omit some critical facts.

First of all, when the central government can inflate the currency to pay for deficit spending, direct taxes are unnecessary. This was admitted by Beardsley Ruml, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in a 1946 essay entitled ?Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete.? The Income Tax, Ruml admitted, exists primarily as a means of social engineering.

The second neglected fact is that Jesus's teaching about rendering to Caesar places limits on government: It can only claim that to which it is legally and morally entitled. Our Constitution lists fewer than two dozen specific purposes for which Congress can appropriate money. All other spending is unauthorized and thus illegal ? and taxation for such purposes is therefore theft.

Let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

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